Description

Individual longings clash with the harsh realities of life in a poor coal-mining town in D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers. Gertrude Coppard is a well-to-do woman whose heart leads her to Walter Morel, a miner who is unable to offer her the lifestyle she has always known. Love cannot blunt the sharp frustrations of their meager existence, and the two people drift apart. Gertrude focuses her energies on her children, young William and his brother Paul. When William dies tragically, Paul emerges from his brother's shadow to take an unshakeable place in his mother's affections. Their relationship is close, and although Paul embarks on love affairs as he enters adulthood, his bond with Gertrude influences his every move. A semi-autobiographical story, Sons and Lovers is a strikingly honest and stark look at the relationships that wither and those that thrive, for better or for worse, in the extreme and unforgiving realm of working-class life.

About the Author

D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) was born into a coal-mining family in England. A gifted student, he rose above his humble origins to win scholarships and continue his education through high school. While working as a factory clerk, ill health took away his strength. As he recovered, Lawrence befriended a local family whose interest in literature matched his own. Encouraged by this support and connection, Lawrence began to write poems and short stories as he returned to work, this time as a teacher. After finding success in publishing a short work, Odor of Chrysanthemums, he began working on longer novels. With his career taking off, Lawrence endured several years of personal ups and downs, including the death of his mother and the beginning of a relationship with a married woman, who, once divorced, would become his wife. While living abroad in Europe and the United States, Lawrence continued to publish some of his most famous novels. Poor health cut short his prolific writing, but the works that Lawrence created, such as Sons and Lovers, Women in Love, Lady Chatterley's Lover, The Lost Girl, and The Rainbow, brought a new energy to twentieth century literature, introducing frank and challenging discussions of such difficult topics as politics, religion, and sexuality.

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Opening Lines (Experimental)

"THE BOTTOMS" succeeded to "Hell Row". Hell Row was a block of thatched, bulging cottages that stood by the brookside on Greenhill Lane. There lived the colliers who worked in the little gin-pits two fields away. The brook ran under the alder trees, scarcely soiled by these small mines, whose coal ...